This blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Directors of the California stem cell
agency will meet March 19 in Burlingame to complete action on
their response to blue-ribbon recommendations for sweeping changes at
the eight-year-old research enterprise.

CIRM Chairman J.T. Thomas last week
told the San Diego U-T editorial board that he regarded approval as
“largely ministerial.”

Thomas has been visiting newspaper
editorial boards around the state, touting his plan, which was
initially approved by the board in January. The main focus has been
on its provisions dealing with conflicts of interest, which would
have 13 of the 29 governing board members voluntarily remove themselves from
voting on any grant applications. The 13 are linked to recipient
institutions. Two other board members linked to recipient
institutions also sit on the board.

About 90 percent of the $1.8 billion
that has been awarded by the CIRM board has gone to institutions
linked to past and present members of the board.

In December, the Institute of Medicine cited major
problems with conflicts at the stem cell agency. It recommended
creation of a new, independent majority on the board, which would
mean that some members would lose their seats. The IOM report also
recommended a host of additional changes that have become eclipsed by
the controversy about conflicts, which were built into the board by
Proposition 71, the ballot measure that created it in 2004.

Also on the agenda for the March 19 is
approval of applications in a $30 million effort by the agency
involving reprogrammed adult stem cells. The agency said the goal of
the initiative is “to generate and ensure the availability of high
quality disease-specific hiPSC resources for disease modeling, target
discovery and drug discovery and development for prevalent,
genetically complex diseases.”

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.